Hello friends, here there is a new challenge. What can be done on a photo as this one? Here my first try.
Please, remember I'm still learning, so explain your procedure for me to learn.

From original at Requiem for Industory - Kazuhiko Nakamura

First thing I did was texture enhance. Alittle bit of curves, colour balance - less yellow and green.
Finally added a little contast and brightness.

Thank you Sallyanne, a good outcome.

my first trial
a little dramatic

I don't know why, but this machinery inspires me to be dramatic!
Another trial, even more dramatic...



edit:
retinex (two separate layers, low and high)
added two layers on top, both with gradient "aneurism", different distance

Dinasset, both of your outcomes are very good. I like more the last one. I'm still practising the one Sallyanne did, then I'll try to do yours.
Thank you

my first experiment came out simply by painting over, so nothing really interesting to reproduce.
With gradients, instead, you may get a lot of interesting results.
At least, for such a kind of picture...

Sallyanne, did you get any problem when you ran texture enhance filter? I get it stops and does nothing. Does the filter take long time to get it?

SallyAnne is likely sleeping...
I tried to use that filter
At least with the standard parameters the answer is immediate!

When I run the filter is immediately stop, and it does nothing. It must be mine that doesn't work. well, I'll try your methods about gradients. Thank you again.

which version of Gmic do you have?
And -in any case- did you "refresh" the filters? (the little symbol between the + and internet)

Here my capture screen. I've actualized GMIC and nothing.

My try with gradients, aneurism one.

1) about Gmic filter: I don't understand, it seems everything OK (unless you have more than one Gmic). Could you try -as last hope- to use it on a very small image?
2) about machinery: well done! try also other gradients, many produce interesting results!

Right! I tried it with a smaller size it worked at once.

everything OK what ends OK ...

interesting image.
Here's my try.

I just played with color balance, and then applied Unsharp Mask on the "DDD" layer of Luminosity Masks.


Another try.

Select everything except the smoke, and played with color balance.

Issabella, look, gimp-chatters are attracted by that strange machinery you posted!
you'll see a lot of "variations" on the subject.....
it's a challenge to get an interesting outcome, easy to get strange ones (like mine also are), more difficult to get fascinating ones...
there is still time!

I like your outcome Tin, a dramatic one with an attractive colour. Well! this is getting very interesting when the best people are doing their art.

I am curious to see Pat David try and see what he comes up with.
It's such an interesting image to play with.

here's another try

I wanted the sky to have a different color to make the machine stand out a little more. so i selected the sky around the machine and gradient masked it. and colorize the sky blue.